Unsettling springtime occurrences

Saturday

Good morning and Happy Decoration Day, which is what Memorial Day used to be called when it was celebrated on May 30.

Just thought we’d talk about a few holiday- and storm-related things that have been taking up space in your loyal scribe’s barely readable notebook since we last communicated.

First, some words about the May 22 second-grade presentation at Douglas Elementary School, where about 140 students regaled the audience in the Intermediate Elementary School Auditorium.

Yes, I know schools all across the country have similar concerts, and it goes to show you don’t have to drive a big pickup truck with a big flag flying on it to let the world know just how patriotic you are. Douglas is just a scenic little town in the Blackstone Valley, but more than 40 soldiers from town died during World War II, and we can only imagine how that affected the community.

Sheila M. Haigh, grade-level coordinator for the second grade at the Douglas Elementary School, said the second-graders definitely take the program seriously and that there is an unmistakable buzz to the school in a way that is more meaningful than finding out what time the holiday cookout is starting.

“They kind of understand that it’s not like a program you’d have on the Fourth of July. We tell the kids this is a solemn ceremony and that this is one of the times they have to be a little more adult-like.”

And so they were.

The intensity in which the second-graders read their poems and sang their songs was enough to make an old curmudgeon like this ink-stained wretch become, let’s just say, a little emotional.

Watching the students sing in their patriotic fervor and purity, I wondered what lies ahead for them. Would one of them eventually follow a path like Douglas Elementary School physical education teacher Sean Ward who resigned earlier this year and is currently a Marine in the wilds of Afghanistan?

So, before we get too sentimental, kudos to the second-graders at Douglas Elementary School.

Then there was Auburn’s Memorial Day parade, where two F-15 Eagle jet fighters flew over the Auburn Fire Station about 10:30 a.m. In case you forgot, two low-flying, fog-shrouded F-15s on their way back from the Boston Independence Day celebration last year scared the daylights out of people in south Worcester and Auburn.

This time their flyover was less dramatic, but it was still noticed by many.

Finally, a few words about last Sunday’s frightening — and for those who went through it, there really is no other word to describe it — hailstorm that pounded southwest Auburn, Millbury, Grafton and Sutton with hail as big as golf balls. The last time yours truly saw hail that big was 40 years ago, just after graduating from Burncoat High School in Worcester, when the shutters of our house were dented. This time, the hail lasted a long time, and it was loud, akin to the sound of high-velocity golf balls hitting your house for five minutes, although Kathy said it felt like two weeks.

Stories from the storm that, according to Bill Simpson, a meteorologist in the Taunton National Weather Service office, is noteworthy for its ferocity in a part of the country that doesn’t usually see this kind of thing, have abounded.

The image of a confused calf in a field near the Auburn-Oxford line being pelted with ice balls from the sky comes to mind along with reports of broken house and car windows in Millbury.

It really was quite the storm and hopefully it will be another 40 years before we see one like that again.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.